White House National Volunteer Coordinator, Michelle Lee, and Joe Follman, Director of Florida Learn and Serve, posed with the OCPS President’s Volunteer Service Award winners at the Florida Learn and Serve Conference. Front row Lauryn Melendez (left) and Nani Doromal. Back row (left to right) Michele Lee, Samantha Seto, Kaley Wyker, Connor Murphy, Mary Barahona, and Joe Follman.
November 2006
By Chris Martin and Connor Murphy
Six OCPS students received The President’s Volunteer Service Award at the November Florida Learn and Serve Conference in Lake Mary. Michele Lee, the White House Community Service Coordinator, presented the awards to Mary Barahona, Lauryn Melendez, Connor Murphy, Samantha Seto, and Kaley Wyker from the Timber Creek High School Service Learning Academy, as well as Nani Doromal from Boone High School. Each student received a letter of congratulations from President Bush, a certificate, and a pin. These students were recognized for earning 100 to 375 service learning hours!
Florida Representative Rick Kriseman was the conference’s keynote speaker. Last year he introduced a bill that would make it possible for every Florida student to participate in service-learning, however, the bill did not pass. He spoke about a new service-learning bill to be introduced this year. An advocacy team of service learning teachers and practitioners was established to promote the positive impacts of service-learning, and to support the proposed legislation.
OCPS schools from across the district were represented at the state conference with many teachers, students and administrators attending. Several OCPS teachers and students were presenters. Orvie Mizzell-Bullock from Meadowbrook Middle School presented a workshop highlighting service-learning projects at Meadowbrook Middle School. Wendy Doromal and TCHS Service Learning Council students co-presented a workshop on Youth Service Learning Councils with Joe Follman, Director of Florida Learn and Serve, and New Port Richey teacher Cindy Tehan and her students from Seven Springs Middle School.
Florida Learn & Serve Executive Director, Joe Follman and OCPS Service Learning Coordinator, Wendy Doromal
OCPS District Service Learning Coordinator, Wendy Doromal, was awarded the 2007 Steven Tunick Award. The award recognizes "outstanding support and sustained commitment to the development and improvement of service learning in Florida." She was presented with a plaque and $1,500. She established the OCPS District Service Learning Program in 2004 through a Florida Learn and Serve Grant that she wrote. The three-year Florida Learn and Serve Conference grant provided funding to establish and institutionalize service-learning throughout the school district.
Through her work, the program has established service-learning school-based liaisons, trained 14 service learning trainers, awarded over 100 service learning mini-grants to OCPS teachers, established multiple service learning councils, sponsored three annual district service learning conferences, and provided hundreds of service learning workshops for teachers and students. She was recognized for practicing and promoting service-learning, human rights, and social justice. She is a national peer mentor for the Southern Service Learning Exchange, and a local, state, national, and international service-learning presenter. She is also a key author of the book, Four Practical Resources for Linking Service Learning and the Sunshine State Standards.
Service Learning Academy students , Mary Barahona and Samantha Seto.
